Bye-Bye Miss American PI (Post-Industrialism)

Back around 2011, when I first began reading The Archdruid Report, John Michael Greer detailed his outlook for America in posts about "catabolic collapse." He throws that term out often and even describes it in macroeconomic terms, but all it means is collapse that feeds on itself, just as the opposite (anabolic growth) means compounding growth caused by self-reinforcing vitality. Though Greer frames his analysis around individual civilizations, he arrives at pretty much the same place I did by drawing from the World3 (Limits to Growth) and BEST models - America eventually becomes a herder/cultivator society. He sees America's collapse starting in 1974 when the rust belt started seriously rusting, and occurring thereafter in stages wherein America devolves into a contented third world country (or several countries) as early as 2030 and continuing to decline if we ...

Fast forward another few decades, and another round of crises arrives, followed by another respite, and another round of crises, until finally peasant farmers plow their fields in sight of the crumbling ruins of our cities.

Though this collapse takes decades, it is many times faster than the centuries-long rise from wilderness settlements to superpowerdom. Greer's description doesn't distinguish between a herder/cultivator and an agrarian society (I edited my own oversight two posts back), but according to The BEST Model (pg. 1-9), one of the distinguishing differences is that agrarians have the advantage of farming with fossil fuels and metal tools. Agrarians can still form empires, but the best herder/cultivators can do is organize groups of villages.

Perhaps schools today should be training kids on how to get by on the terms they are likely to encounter in their adulthood, but for those reading this today, let us consider the near-term implications of the world collapsing relatively quickly from an integrative post-industrial economy with international democratic organizations to industrial economies with nationalist democracies. This is the destination Trumpist isolationism appears to favor. Soon after we have re-industrialized, more collapse will likely thrust us further down the chain so that, come 2030 or so, we may find ourselves rediscovering agrarianism under autocratic governments (Russia today) and decades later, after fossil fuels are no longer available, back in the herder/cultivator stage under familial rule.

Seeing as how we should expect further collapse of our post-industrial system back to a straight industrial system in the next decade, factory jobs should be prized by jobseekers. At least Trump is aiming to bring those jobs back home. Small business manufacturing is a good way to go - for the environment, cultivation of long-term relationships, and adjustment to a more fragmented nation. Employment at a factory out in the countryside might offer a chance to segue into agriculture when the factory shuts down. Ideally, living among relatives engaged in small farming or other sustainable vocations would position one for the next level of collapse to hunter/cultivator villages. Ecoforestry is ideal for this latter stage. Since all of these changes could take place over just a few decades, it will be important to have a job with enough time off to allow one to acquire the tools and skills that will enable one to live in the future as it spirals down. We are 42 years into the catabolic collapse and only have a few decades left before America begins to look like it did before the Europeans arrived.

Popular posts from this blog

The best thing that I got out of the Climate March in D.C. on Saturday was meeting someone with a similar background who is also a permaculturalist. Even if they fail to catch the attention of politicians, protest marches and rallies serve to build community and solidarity around ideas and solutions. More protests followed the next day and again the next with a focus on the rights of workers. Seems the honeymoon hasn't led to a very happy marriage.

The May Day protests included a large contingent of immigrant rights advocates who have their own particular difficulties under a hostile administration in addition to being able to earn a decent living. New entrants to the U.S. workforce, immigrant or not, have had to struggle with stagnant or declining wages since 2000. Yet, worker productivity has continued to climb year after year, although the rate of increase has halved to less than 1% per year over the past decade.

In order for America to emerge from the fourth turning as a federation of confederations, the transition will need to begin soon. Due to our crisis of presidential leadership, it is suddenly conceivable that the watershed event triggering a complete geopolitical realignment of these United States is now before us.

That event would be the passage of a ballot measure aiming for California to secede from the union. Once California passes their measure, the secessionist urge will snowball to include several more states. Depending on the popularity and success of the YesCalifornia movement, there are several other states with long-standing secessionist movements likely to follow suit. These include Hawaii, Texas, Vermont, and New Hampshire, all being spurred on by the election of DJ T-Rump. Washington, D.C. will not be able to prevent these departures because there is no component of the U.S. military that will agree to take up arms against any of the states, especially California. Especia…

I may have missed it, but in my twelve years as a cost analyst for the Department of Defense, including the highest level of certification from the Defense Acquisition University, I never once heard of Baumol's Cost Disease. Nonetheless, the late William Baumol was famous for his discovery of how the cost of services rises implacably while the cost of goods decline. Cost analysts could be spared much consternation through this principle, but it also clarifies the situation for the man on the street.

When you look at the declining productivity gains over the past few decades, much of the slowdown can be attributed to this "disease," wherein more and more employment has shifted away from manufacturing and into services. Manufacturing processes are more easily automated than most service jobs, so the shift to large-scale, centralized manufacturing has improved efficiencies and profits in that sector.

Southern Maryland maker of biochar, which is used to make my soil the healthiest it can be in order to grow good food, including mushrooms.

In the course of learning about making biochar on a small scale, I visited +Albert Bates' Eco-Village Training Center at The Farm in Summertown, TN for a three-day workshop. Among other things, that experience led me to register with The Green Party. The nauseating 2016 Presidential election campaigns motivated me to publicize The Green Party's promises, as opposed to the rhetoric and lies of our traditional parties.